We need to talk about data centres.
For the 2nd or 3rd time this week I've seen someone comment on a new data centre build with a stat about how 80% of data is never accessed. Then they talk about the energy and cooling used in modern DCs.
The reality is that data storage is actually incredibly efficient, and uses fuck all power. A hard disk is less than 10w and stores multiple users data.
Storing data, our photos, our memories, our history. Is not the problem.
What is? 1/n
@quixoticgeek The problem isn't storing the data. The problem is finding it again!
A lot of organisations end up with terabytes of rubbish accumulating because storage is dirt cheap and it's not worth spending valuable employee-hours having someone rummage through it and make the decisions of which files are worth keeping.
@quixoticgeek AI is hugely overhyped, but this might be one of the few places it could actually be useful. Improved natural language search. Businesses would save a lot of time if their mail search could handle queries like "Who was it that emailed us about the new widget machine about two years ago?"
For the most part though, yes, the main application for generative AI is in advanced spam synthesis.